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Google turns its back on India

The handset business of web giant Google has taken a further step towards reducing its presence in India after shutting down Motorola Mobility’s Indian website. The move follows an announcement made by the firm in August, when it said it will shrink its operations in India and lay off 4,000 employees in Asia as part of its restructuring efforts.

“We are streamlining our business and support systems, and unfortunately, we’ll no longer have a dedicated website for India,” read a message on the holding page replacing Motorola Mobility’s Indian website.

The message added that local support sites will remain open and the firm pledged to continue to provide support for its existing products.

The market represents a sizeable opportunity for operators and handset vendors, with close to one billion subscribers as of September 2012, according to Informa’s WCIS. In that month alone, subscribers in the country spent over $6.8bn on mobile services.

Google has been aggressively cutting costs in an effort to bring its handset business, which it acquired for $12.5bn, back to profitability. The firm announced the closure of a third of Motorola Mobility’s worldwide offices as well as pledging to cut 20 per cent of its workforce.

The web giant ousted former CEO Sanjay Jha, the man who revived Motorola’s devices business and led the company through its acquisition, in May of this year. Former Google Americas president Dennis Woodside replaced Jha and also overhauled the firm’s management with his own staff.

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